Damage is a measurement of how harmful an attack is to a character. When a character takes Damage, it is subtracted from his or her Hit Points. Damage will cause death when a character's hit points reach 0.
Influences
Weapons all have base damage values. The final damage delivered to the target, however, is possibly modified by various factors, depending on the game.
| Mechanic | Fallout 1/2/Tactics | Fallout 3 | Fallout: New Vegas |
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| Critical Hits | 
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| Condition | 
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| Damage Modifier |
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| Damage Resistance |
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| Damage Resistance Modifier |
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/ a
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| Damage Threshold |
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| V.A.T.S.-special |
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^ b
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^ c
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^ a Fallout: New Vegas features a few weapons that completely ignore DR, even if few enemies actually have DR.
^ b Damage done to the player in V.A.T.S. is reduced by 90%.
^ c Damage done to the player in V.A.T.S. is reduced by 25%. Melee/unarmed damage done by the player is doubled.
The computation formula of the final damage is described in more detail on the combat pages for Fallout 1 and 2, Fallout 3, or Fallout: New Vegas.
Types
There are different types of damage, depending on the weapon of attack.
| Type | Description | Fallout 1/2/Tactics | Fallout 3 | Fallout: New Vegas |
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| Normal | The vast majority of damage from all weapons. |
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| Laser | Damage specific to laser weapons. |
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| Fire | Damage from flame-based weapons and explosives, occasionally residual. |
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| Plasma | Damage specific to plasma-based weapons. |
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| Explosive | Damage from otherwise unspecial explosives. |
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| EMP/Pulse | Damage from electromagnetic weapons, generally good against robots. |
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| Electrical | Hidden and used by very few weapons.a |
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/ b
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/ b
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^ a Not shown in the games that use it, Electrical damage is only caused by alien blaster, YK32 pulse pistol, and YK42B pulse rifle.
^ b Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas use "energy" damage to label the residual effect off the Tesla cannon, though it has the appearance of electricity sparking.
Special exceptions
 | The following is based on information from Fallout Tactics. |
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Fallout Tactics adds Gas Damage. It also re-categorizes "Laser" as "Energy" damage.
| End of information based on information from Fallout Tactics |
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 | The following is based on Van Buren design documents and is not canon. |
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Van Buren adds Ballistic, Bio, and Heat damage.
| End of information based on Van Buren design documents |
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